Of Fading Love
by Commander Jane Shepard
Summary: Harbinger has succeeded in acquiring that which he sought most. But she has proven resistant to persuasion. What will it take to make Shepard malleable to his will?


Dark indignation spreads like a plague through her body, her mind, her soul... What soul she has left. Nerve endings alight like they are on fire, and yet no one has touched her. It is in her mind, but it is real. Sweat collects on her brow as she finishes her round of screeching, unable to pull away from the bonds that hold her to the metal table. At least she thinks she is laying down. Sometimes they stand her up and hang her from her wrists, but she feels like she would be falling if she wasn't laying on something. Maybe they have cracked into her mind at last.

**You will pay for your resistance.**

She has already paid a price far greater than was necessary. If she resists anymore, it is involuntary. She doesn't even struggle. She cannot remember doing anything that would have been classified as resistance for a long time -what she thinks is a long time; with her captivity, time is simply relative. It is split into when she is receiving sensory input- pain, and when she is not. It is the times when she is not that she cannot quite bear to be alone with her thoughts.

**Relinquish this form to us.**

"Why?" she grounds out through a bloody mouth, lips split and voice harsh and raspy from screaming. "You have me. You're telling me you need my permission now?"

A slight pause, as if the controlled Collector general before her is contemplating her words.

**Permission no. We require your submission to us. We are your genetic destiny. You cannot escape your destiny, Shepard.**

Of course. It isn't enough he is beating her senseless with _thoughts._ It isn't enough that she is there enduring it. She must to raise herself to the whip to make them happy.

"Fuck... you..."

**We know how to hurt you, Shepard. You think you are in pain. But you have not yet known true pain.**

"Then why don't you just kill me and get it over with?"

**How little you understand. We require you alive and malleable, Shepard. You will obey now. The pain will stop.**

She is disgusted with herself at the ravaged scream of want that runs through her. She wants it to stop. Desperately needs it to stop. But... then what? He would have her mind. She would be indoctrinated. She would be a shell, no better than the husks that she'd cut down. No. It is an impossibility. They need her for _something_. They _require_ her submission. So if she doesn't give it, she is denying them -him- something important. That thought alone bolsters her, and her split lips twist into what would have once been a smile.

"You won't kill me. You need me. I think I'll make you wait a bit longer."

If he could have growled, Shepard swore that he would. Surely it was just her fucked mind, playing tricks on her. Reapers could not sound angry.

**You will regret this, Shepard. Your submission will be complete, but you will know pain.**

And he leaves her alone with her thoughts. It is strange then, that she almost longs for his return, so at least her mind would not be so empty. It is the aloneness, the emptiness that is the worst.

She later comes to regret those unsaid thoughts, the fact that she even dared think them is an embarrassment to her. It is not more of the same. Not the same mindblowing pain that is just a thought imposed into her brain through her implants. Not the same pain that literally ruptures blood vessels and bruises her. Not the same pain that fractures bones and slices skin. She feels those things, but those things she can handle... knows how to handle. She cannot handle his cold, calculated perusal of her cherished memories, and how he cares for them like a cockroach leaving its filth upon the world. Everything he touches, he leaves a film of grotesqueness on, like a sickening, mucousy slime that repulses her. And with her rejection of those once-loved memories, they slowly float out of reach, never to be recaptured. He is tainting her against herself, and with nothing she can do to stop him, he is succeeding.

She is slowly losing who she is to him, and as her childhood, her family, her friends begin disappearing, the gaping maw only widens and creates an intense, painful hunger deep inside her.

**This hurts you. You should have relented when we asked you. Now, you will come to us clear of who you are. You cannot escape, Shepard.**

It is when Harbinger begins to unfold her memories of Garrus that she cries out in pain and wrenches herself against the bonds. Heavy tears stream down her cheeks, cutting wet ravines through the dried blood that is caked there. _No no no..._ her mind keeps replaying over and over. He can't take those from her.

**Emotion is what makes you weak. Surrender to us, and you may still yet keep him.**

And there it is. All the memories that have been lost prior mean nothing, not when compared to this. And Harbinger knows it. Whatever he wants her for, she knows it is not something that will benefit organic life. For her to become indoctrinated, that alone is an enormous hit to morale. She knows she must fight this. But she... she can't. Not when it comes to him. She knows she will never see him again, but imagining that she will never remember him is such a painful feeling that she can't breathe. Can she condemn humanity for him? How could she live with herself, knowing that she had all those deaths on her hands? How could she not protect the lives that she was sworn to? But how could she live without knowing Garrus's love for her? How could she live without him?

"Don't... don't take him..."

**You will surrender this form to us.**

"I..." She shudders at the wrongnes of it all. At the fucked up galaxy for making her too important. She would rather die than relinquish her control. She would rather die than forget him. But Harbinger will not let her die. She still remembers the terrified feeling of knowing that he had paid the Shadow Broker to retrieve her body when the reapers themselves were the ones to kill her. She can only guess that was on oversight on their part... that she wasn't supposed to have died. But then what would they have done to her then, had they retrieved her?

She hesitates too long, and Harbinger begins to tear at the very first time they met. Shepard cries out again, clinging to the slime-ridden memory like it is Vakarian himself.

**We have located the Turian. His death will bring about your submission.**

"No! I..."

**You will submit to us now.**

"...Yes. I will... submit to you. Don't kill him."

And in an instant, he fills her mind. He is everywhere all at once, and she can't breathe again, and in terrified reluctance, she can feel her walls coming up, trying to protect herself. But they are one now, and she also feels him as he gets ready to order the demise of her lover. And so she forcefully tears the walls down before him, granting him access to everything that she is... everything that she was. It is enough to stop the order that would unhinge her. It is enough to know that, at least for now, he is sincere in his assertions that he will not kill Garrus. Maybe he thinks it will not make a difference in the long run. One Turian cannot fight the army that has besieged them... that is besieging her mind.

It is hard to handle the guilt that slams into her like a physical blow. She is no longer Shepard. Harbinger has taken it from her, everything... but he has left her the memory of the only thing she holds dear. As if he feels remorse for this, she feels him access these memories; not to corrupt them. But to replay them for her, and for himself.

All too clearly, she can see his blue eyes gazing at her, softened by affection, and more tears fall from clenched eyes... and yet, she does not know why. Harbinger continues to catalogue her lost life before her eyes. She sees their first kiss. She feels his careful touch on her skin, so light... as if he is afraid to hurt her. Her face flushes as the presence in her mind studies these... Their first night together, before the mission that destroyed the collector base. Hours of soft, heated passion that make her body respond even now... and Harbinger is pleased. Just as she relinquished her control to Garrus, Harbinger surges his consciousness forward, taking more of her mind in some perverse parody of a love. He is everywhere... he is before her, and he becomes the memory in her mind, wearing Garrus's form like a second skin.

He holds her down and fucks her in the memory, and Shepard can do nothing to fight it because she no longer wants to. It is Garrus that she sees above her, Garrus that she feels within her, and she relishes this... feels herself grow taut in the restraints of his hands in her memory, just as she does in the cold metal that holds her down. Harbinger is relentless as he turns these most loved memories against her. She still retains them, but she should have known that he would not hesitate to use them as a weapon, not when she let on just how much power they hold over her. She has effectively doomed herself.

She cries out along with her memory, this time in completion, and Harbinger withdraws his consciousness from her, leaving her mind to inhabit the twisted excuse for a Prothean once again. She shudders on the table, the fine sheen of sweat growing cold and making her tremble, and is disgusted when her mind reaches out for him in the absence...

**You have submitted completely, Shepard.**

As if he needed to gloat. As if she needed to be reminded of her fall from grace.

**We have secured your obedience. You will no longer know pain.**

She is panting lightly still, the urge to vomit very strong. "Thanks." Her voice is hollow.

**The Turian will not be killed.**

Somewhere, she feels something akin to adoration, and she beats it down quickly. But she knows he has felt it already. And though their minds are no longer connected, she feels his own version of pleasure at the thought. Shepard turns her gaze away.

**The ascended organics will be coming to heal your injuries. Do not resist.**

And she knows she won't. Not because she wants her body taken care of. She does, but she would resist, if she could. She no longer has the ability.

With the bitter realization of what she has done, Shepard stares blankly at the half-organic walls of the room she has been tortured in, and feels the utter hopelessness of the situation upon her. She knows she will not be leaving now. No one will be coming to her rescue. And she wouldn't want them to... not now. She is a mere shell, all of the things she held dear fluttering away like discarded tissues... and yet she knows a sense of peace. It is the weirdest sense of division she can remember feeling. As her mind slowly starts to turn, she finds that she cannot bear the knowledge that she is becoming that which she fought against so hard. And so she turns her mind away, loses herself in her memories of the Turian who loved what she once was... and allows herself to be happy, if only for a while.


End file.
